This release consists of flux tower measurements of the exchange of energy and mass between the surface and the atmospheric boundary-layer using eddy covariance techniques. Data were processed using PyFluxPro (v3.5.0) as described by Isaac et al. (2017). PyFluxPro produces a final, gap-filled product with Net Ecosystem Exchange (NEE) partitioned into Gross Primary Productivity (GPP) and Ecosystem Respiration (ER).
This is a topographically flat area, primarily comprised of the following soil types: sandy loams, scattered clays, red brown earths, transitional red brown earth, sands over clay and deep sands. Stream valleys and layered soil and sedimentary materials are found across the landscape.
The flux station tower extends to 20 m, however flux measurements are recorded from slightly lower than this. Mean annual precipitation from the nearby Bureau of Meteorology is 465 mm. Maximum temperatures ranged from 16.6 °C (in July) to 37.4 °C (in January), while minimum temperatures ranged from 11.8 °C (in July) to 29.0 °C (in January). Maximum temperatures varied on a seasonal basis by approximately 20.8 °C and minimum temperatures by 17.2 °C.
The site is within a wider research area (60 x 60 km) that supports a network of flux stations, which have been in operation since late 2001.
Credit
We at TERN acknowledge the Traditional Owners and Custodians throughout Australia, New Zealand and all nations. We honour their profound connections to land, water, biodiversity and culture and pay our respects to their Elders past, present and emerging.
The site was established in April 2012 as part of a project run with the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), and is managed by The University of Western Australia. Primary investigators and contributors are named in the citation.
The flux station is part of the Australian OzFlux Network and contributes to the international FLUXNET Network.
Purpose
The purpose of Yanco flux tower is to:
- provide additional validation data for GCOM-W1 soil moisture products, which are components of a land surface data assimilation system; these data systems are important for land surface models, which rely on atmosphere-surface observations
- validate the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer-2 (AMSR2) soil moisture product and resulting soil moisture and flux estimates
- to model crops, runoff, and flood forecasting (Land Surface Model forcing data, i.e. input of AMSR2 soil moisture into the Joint UK Land Environment Simulator - JULES - model).
Data Processing
File naming convention
The NetCDF files follow the naming convention below:
SiteName_ProcessingLevel_FromDate_ToDate_Type.nc
- SiteName: short name of the site
- ProcessingLevel: file processing level (L3, L4, L5, L6)
- FromDate: temporal interval (start), YYYYMMDD
- ToDate: temporal interval (end), YYYYMMDD
- Type (Level 6 only): Summary, Monthly, Daily, Cumulative, Annual
- Summary: This file is a summary of the L6 data for daily, monthly, annual and cumulative data. The files Monthly to Annual below are combined together in one file.
- Monthly: This file shows L6 monthly averages of the respective variables, e.g. AH, Fc, NEE, etc.
- Daily: same as Monthly but with daily averages.
- Cumulative: File showing cumulative values for ecosystem respiration, evapo-transpiration, gross primary productivity, net ecosystem exchange and production as well as precipitation.
- Annual: same as Monthly but with annual averages.
Lineage
All flux raw data is subject to the quality control process OzFlux QA/QC to generate data from L1 to L6. Levels 3 to 6 are available for re-use. Datasets contain Quality Controls flags which will indicate when data quality is poor and has been filled from alternative sources. For more details, refer to Isaac et al. (2017).